Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

Hestia tried to hide the skill from us but I was having none of it and simply restored the smudged out words. I can't say I blame her though as this was basically a flat out declaration that Bell was in love or at the very least was interested in Ais. To be honest i was slightly offended that he hadn't gotten the skill out of desire to be like me since I was an impressive motherfucker if I do say so myself. Ego aside I suppose I was happy for him as he was pretty much set so long as he didn't die early.-

"Are you sure you are ready to go back into the dungeon?" Hestia asked worried after I had made my intentions to return to delving known.

"Yeah, it's about time I got back into the swing of things now that I've got my feet under me again. Making cursed tools is fun and all but it's also costly and in order to raise my stats I need to kill some monsters." I said honestly.

"You could at least take Bell with you so you can watch each others backs." she said and I shook my head.

"Right now we'd just get in each others way if we did. Plus I can't use my flames if I am in a team without risking injury to whoever was with me. Believe me I find it just as annoying as you do since that also means I can't have a supporter either but that's just the way things are." I said with a shrug.

"Just try and be careful alright?" she said and I nodded seriously.

Leaving the church I couldn't help but be a bit excited to get some input on my new combat related cursed tools I had on me. I had crafted a total of five that I planned to test today. The first was a shield I had crafted for my left arm that had a force reversal technique on it along with the [durability] and [hard] properties. The way the shield was supposed to work was that it was supposed to absorb the force of any attack that hits it and at a time of my choosing release all that force back out the front with a shield bash. If it worked I was looking forward to a bright future.-

The second item I made was actually a pair of items in fact but was basically my attempt at making a phone using my technique. It was a small coin with an ear on one side and a mouth on the other that was supposed to allow someone holding one of the two to talk to the person holding the other regardless of distance. If it worked I was planning to equip each member of the familia with one in the future to give us a huge edge while deep delving or if we get separated.-

Can you even imagine how great it would be if we could just like tell someone on the outside that we had an issue and needed help while on say floor forty two? Game. Changing. Moving on we had my third experimental cursed tool that was supposed to work as a metal detector. Look I didn't mind spending so much to experiment when I had no other option but if I could just like mine the damn metal myself from the dungeon i am always going to take that option. But like any mining familia will tell you finding the metal is half the challenge as the dungeon is always shifting slightly and adding or removing the metal from locations and as a result it was a pain to find sometimes.-

If this item worked I could stock up on the good shit and work to outfit myself and Bell with gear that would make level fours jealous. I'm talking full cursed armor out of orichalcum or adamantite that turned us into walking tanks. I'd have to figure out how to make cursed tools capable of growth though since when I tried that the item actually ended up getting bigger at a slow but constant rate.-

That is to say the technique took the wording very literally rather than how I was hoping. I knew the idea was possible since Hephaestus and her captain Tsubaki were able to make gear that could grow with it's user but that they rarely did since it was extremely hard. I'm a prideful bastard though and couldn't help but try and one up them by doing it at level two. The worse part about my attempt though was that it also rendered the material unusable since while the size increased it was nothing but impurities dragged from the air in truth.-

Anyways my fourth item was my attempt at a spatially expanded bag. Admittedly i had underestimated how hard it was to make spatial items as the attempt took me all of my cursed energy and I had a sneaking suspicion it actually destroyed whatever I put in it rather than store it. I couldn't really test it fully at the church because I was running out of stuff and didn't want to waste what little I had left. The final item was perhaps not something I should have made but my inner pyro won out and I made a cursed tool version of a grenade.-

It was basically just my flames stuffed and compressed in an orb the size of a baseball that I could lob in order for it to explode on contact. It wasn't my proudest moment but I won't lie and say I'm not excited to see it in action. Anyways I stopped by the hostess to enhance some ingredients before head to the dungeon with my Syr made meal in my normal bag. On the first floor I tested out the shield and was slightly disappointed to learn that it BARELY managed to store three attacks from a goblin before breaking as it couldn't handle the force anymore.-

I also tested the coin as well and Hestia who had the other one could talk to me just fine but this was only the first floor so that may change as I get further down. My theory about the spatial bag was also true as it shredded anything I put into it and exploded after "eating" a magic stone. That just left my grenade and the metal detector but the first was not something I was going to waste on a goblin and the later wouldn't even work this close to the surface as the metals didn't start showing up until the tenth floor at minimum.-

I didn't even bother killing the kobolds or goblins after testing the other stuff and just hurried down towards the tenth floor where the monsters would actually be worth killing. I can't even begin to describe how strange it felt to be moving at fast speeds but feeling like I wasn't as I sprinted through the floors. Well fast compared to when I was level one anyways as I think my current top speed was only slightly faster than the fastest human on earth at about twenty seven ish miles per hour at a full sprint.